A review of Peter Christopherson's "Time Machines II"

I know that the man used electronic instruments. I know that I might even own one or two of the exact type he utilized to create the follow up to Coil's Time Machines, but, in my mind's eye, I've never pictured Peter Christopherson sitting down at a keyboard and pushing buttons or pressing keys; I picture him sitting in a darkened room with a jumble of wires sticking out of the far wall. He sits and meditates on what he wants to create, what he decides to share, what he needs to excise from himself, then stabs these wires into his brain. The resulting sound is recorded directly onto whatever storage device he has hooked up.*
It's a nightmarish image, but it's the only one that comes to me when I hear this, Christopherson's final work**.

The end begins with dental drills and synthesized church bells. Exactly as it should. Next, something rife with whimsical jounce, fun until everything melts into sputtering, chittering madness. The fourth track sounds enough like something from Alessandro Cortini's Forse trilogy that it's distracting. The penultimate track is redolent of tribal drums and black mists. The album concludes with something wet and nasty; a noxious tar pit teeming with broken starlight. Or eyestalks. And, although things are disturbing and evocative for a bit, the final sounds given to this world by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson are quiet, tender, and lonesome. 

When compared directly with its predecessor, Time Machines II is not as trance-inducing; there's more variation and texture to the dissonance, but, I firmly believe that, under the right circumstances, one could use this work to truly pass through the space-time continuum. It's a dark, elegant, and fitting end to the creative life of one of the bravest men in music.

* In this case, a USB drive embedded in a piece of wood contained within an engraved pewter slipcase in a leather pouch.

** "Final" until some malnourished Thai boy stumbles over Danny Hyde's doorstep clutching a wax cylinder bestowed upon him decades ago by Sleazy himself.